If you respond using the consultation hub, you will be directed
to the About You page before submitting your response. Please
indicate how you wish your response to be handled and, in
particular, whether you are content for your response to published.
If you ask for your response not to be published, we will regard it
as confidential, and we will treat it accordingly.

All respondents should be aware that the Scottish Government is
subject to the provisions of the Freedom of Information (Scotland)
Act 2002 and would therefore have to consider any request made to
it under the Act for information relating to responses made to this
consultation exercise.

If you are unable to respond via Citizen Space, please complete
and return the Respondent Information Form included in this
document.

Where respondents have given permission for their response to be
made public, and after we have checked that they contain no
potentially defamatory material, responses will be made available
to the public at
http://consult.gov.scot. If
you use the consultation hub to respond, you will receive a copy of
your response via email.

Following the closing date, all responses will be analysed and
considered along with any other available evidence to help us.
Responses will be published where we have been given permission to
do so. An analysis report will also be made available.

Comments and complaints

If you have any comments about how this consultation exercise
has been conducted, please send them to the contact address above
or at
licensing.consultation@gov.scot.

Scottish Government consultation process

Consultation is an essential part of the policymaking process.
It gives us the opportunity to consider your opinion and expertise
on a proposed area of work.

You can find all our consultations online:
http://consult.gov.scot. Each
consultation details the issues under consideration, as well as a
way for you to give us your views, either online, by email or by
post.

Responses will be analysed and used as part of the decision
making process, along with a range of other available information
and evidence. We will publish a report of this analysis for every
consultation. Depending on the nature of the consultation exercise
the responses received may:

indicate the need for policy development or review

inform the development of a particular policy

help decisions to be made between alternative policy
proposals

be used to finalise legislation before it is implemented

While details of particular circumstances described in a
response to a consultation exercise may usefully inform the policy
process, consultation exercises cannot address individual concerns
and comments, which should be directed to the relevant public
body.